• Cultural unity

• Diversity of political organizations

• Citizenship

A model Greek Polis (city-state)

• Common structures and architectural language
  • Pottery, sculpture, costume
• Sporting Events
  • Olympic Games (first in 776 BC)
• Warfare
• Mythology
• Language (barbaros)

'Homer Caetani', Roman copy (C2 AD?) of Hellenistic statue

• Linear B (extinct c.1100 BC) –> Cypriot Syllabary (extince c.300 BC)
  • Syllabic (consonant & vowel)
• Phoenecian
  • Abjad (consonants only, no vowels)
  • Derived from Egyptian heiroglyphs
  • Evolved into Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and other scripts

Neck of the "Nessos Amphora," Athens, 625-600 BC, National Archaeological Museum

The "Cup of Nestor" From Pithekoussai, c. 750-700 BC. Cf Iliad, 11.632-637.

Detail of hoplite battle on the the Chingi Vase, c.650-40 BC

• Laconia ("Laconic")
• "Militaristic" and "totalitarian" state
• Citizenry
  • State training for both boys and girls
  • Lifelong military service (7-60)
  • Property rights for women
  • No currency
• Helots, enslaved descendents of Messenians
  • Both necessary and existential threat

• Attica
• Solon reformed oligarchy 594 BC
• Peisistratus becomes Tyrant 560 BC
• Reforms of Cleisthenes 509 BC
  • New tribes (demes)
  • Assembly (all citizens)
  • "Election" by lots to Council of 500, Generals elected annually by popular vote
  • Ostracism
• Citizens, Metics, Slaves
  • Citizens had 2 years military service
  • Women citizens had very restricted lives

• Political unity, cultural heterogenity
  • Cyrus the Great (d. 530 BC)
• Conquered Lydia 547 BC
• Regular contact with Greek world
  • Greek cities supported revolts in Asia Minor, Egypt; Persia supported weak Greek poleis
  • Use of Greek mercenaries both for and against the empire

• Ionian revolt 499, supported by Athens
  • 490 (Marathon); 480 (Thermopylae, Salamis); 479 (Plataea)
  • Delian League formed 478, became Athenian Empire under Pericles' leadership (d. 429 BC)
• Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC
  • Ended in victory of Spartan alliance

• Thebes replaced Sparta as preeminent power
  • Epaminondas (d. 362)
  • Military reforms
  • Messenia liberated 380 BC
• Macedonian Hegemony
  • Philip (d. 336) was hostage in Thebes in his youth, learned reforms and implemented more
  • "Hemibarbaros"
  • United Greece

• philein (to love) sophia (wisdom)
• Plato (d. 347)
  • Platonic dialogues
  • Academy (to 529 AD)
• Aristotle (d. 322 BC)
  • Comprehensive system of philosophy: physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government
  • Lyceum (to 86 BC)

• Primary
  • Herodotus, Histories. [The original work of history]
  • Xenophon, Anabasis. [The story of Greek mercenaries returning home, by one of Socrates' students]
• Secondary
  • R. Kebric, Greek People, 4th Edition (2004).
  • R. Morkot, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece, (1996).
  • S.B. Pomeroy et al. A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society and Culture, 3rd Edition (2017).

• Simplification
• Standardization
• Accessibility

• Year: 365.253 Days
• Lunar ("synodic") month: 29.5 days
  • ~11 days short of a solar year

• Correlation and cross-dating ("Synchronism")
  • Comparison of finds in one context of discovery having a continuous record, particularly written (e.g. Egypt of Mesopotamia), or with a precise date, with those in another context of discovery (e.g. Greece)
  • "Heirloom" problem
• Scientific dating
  • Radiometric dating: most famously carbon-14 (or "radiocarbon"); half-life 5730 +/- 40 years
  • Incremental dating: e.g. tree-rings (dendrochronology), ice cores, lake-bed sediment
  • Problems: calibration; regional gaps in the record
• Usually, dating methods are used in combination

• Hellenistic kingdoms adapted Macedonian/Classical Greek calendar to local cycles
  • Egypt: 12 months of 30 days, 5 additional days at the end of the year
  • Syria: Babylonian Metonic cycle: 19 solar years ~ 235 lunar months (12 months/year + 7 "intercalary" months)
• Indiction: 15 year tax cycle
  • Used throughout Europe & Mediterranean in 1st Millennium AD
• We use the Gregorian calendar (1582 AD), a reformed Julian calendar (45 BC), a reformed Old Roman calendar
  • Same month names
  • Julian calendar removed the "intercalary" month

• anno domini AD/BC (CE/BCE)
• ab urbe condita (AUC), Rome
  • Rome: 753 BC
• anno mundi AM, Jews and Christians
  • Hebrew Latin epoch: c.3760 BC
  • Orthodox epoch: c.5500 BC
• anno graecorum, Syria & Middle East
  • 312 BC (Seleucus' conquest of Babylon)
  • Used through c14 AD
• fasti: Eponymous archons (Greek city-states); Consular year (Rome)
  • Athens: C6 BC - C3 AD

• Preservation
  • Oral memory: ~200 years
  • Inscriptions: durable; large amount of effort; exposed
  • Clay: luck of becoming pottery
  • Metals: rust; intrinsic value –> recycling
  • Natural materials: portable; cheaper; decay (wax tablets, papyrus, parchment) –> transmission (copying)

Cuneiform tablet with seal impression, Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. c.2100-2050 BC

Homer, Iliad II 757-775, Oxford Bodleian Library, Papyrus Hawara 24-28 (C2 AD)

Singing from a sideways scroll, Howard Psalter & Hours, English, c.1310-20.

• Calendars and Dating Systems
  • E.J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World, (1980).
  • A.E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chroonology. Calendars and Years in Classical Antiquity, (1972).
• Writing and record-keeping
  • P. Daniels and W. Bright, The World's Writing Systems, (1996).
  • F. Coulmas, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, (1996).
  • L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, 3rd Edition (1991).